She hadn’t seen it in its final preparation. She deliberately hadn’t seen it in the month and a half Maddy and Sam had been doing all the work here. Her paintings–the first Ari’s–stayed where they were, in Ari’s apartment, to wait there until her successor made a decision, and by the time it was her successor’s successor in question, the first Ari’s apartment would probably become irrelevant, to that centuries‑from‑now world, its content just scattered where it made sense to go.
But the artwork on the first Ari’s walls had been only a fraction of the collection. Paintings in the modern mode were spaced along the walls of this corridor, turning the gray and white expanse into segments you could say belonged to the green painting, or the red one–nothing of the sterile black and gray and white surrounds of Wing One. Alpha Wing, still smelling of paint and plaster and the attendant moisture, was a different world, a profound change from where she’d always lived. Very, very unlike anything Denys would approve.
And the double doors that each gave access to various apartments down the hall–they weren’t black, or beige, or one of twenty variations on white: one pair of doors, apartment 10, was red, 9 was blue, and 8 was bright green.
Her own doors, at the end of the hall, were as blue‑green as new Cy‑teen leaves, and when Florian unlocked them, they gave way silently onto her waterfall, bubbling and flowing down a wall that could have been natural rock, and making a soft sound to welcome them.
The miniature brook, lighted underneath the glass, ran right across under the stonework hall floor, and meandered off into the living room. She followed it there, and just stopped and set down her bag, and looked around her and up at the tank, the immense tank that sparkled with ripples and moved with small living fish and shadowed with living rocks and waving sea life. That watery wall reflected off the unbreakable glass that topped the cross‑floor river, so that the river underneath her feet was brown rock and flowing fresh water, and when she looked across the room, the glass top of the river reflected the Earth‑ocean that was the wall.
The ocean suddenly vanished. It was directional glass, and Florian demonstrated the wall control, “if sera wants to have it plain,” Florian said, “it will vanish. The light is still on, on the other side. Sam sent us the instructions.”
She looked away, turning slowly. Paintings. Framed colors, on the severe stone walls. The master artisans of Earth.
Part of the living room wall was garden behind glass–the wall that divided the living room from the dining room turned out transparent, with that kind of glass, just like the other. It could turn opaque at the flick of a switch, making the wall something else, making the dining room or the living room a private, undistracted area at need.
And the living room, even with the furniture, was big enough for several large sets of people to sit and talk at once–in some privacy. The water‑sound permeated the space, luxurious, and peaceful. Florian switched both walls back to transparency, and the ocean and the garden were instantly back.
It was everything Sam had promised. It was magical, top to bottom. She’d wanted to be surprised, and she was overwhelmed. Florian and Catlin looked around as she did, their own baggage left in the foyer.
Catlin asked:
“Are you happy with it, sera?”
“Very. Very.”
And there was no Sam. She’d thought he might be here to meet her, but he wasn’t, which was like him–just to have his work make its own declaration. He’d done it alclass="underline" everything was going to be fresh, from the dinner plates in the dining room–rose‑colored pottery, mostly–to the couches, blue, just as she’d asked, but they turned out a grayed blue that went better with the stonework and the water and the plants behind the glass.
It all just fit, a harmony of sound and color that reached right into the senses. It was hers, in a way no place she had ever been had been hers. Maddy had helped do this. So had Amy, in the organizational sense, finding all the pieces Sam wanted. They’d given her this wonderful place, and she loved them. And Yanni was going to talk about the cost, but she’d told them–do it with their own places. Do it everywhere. Make it right.
She was happy, she decided. Really, really happy. She’d been so scared it wouldn’t feel right to her, and it wouldn’t behome.
But it was. It was home even when she’d never been here before.
BOOK THREE Section 3 Chapter iv
JULY 3, 2424
1628H
Through with work for the day. Dinner over at Antonio’s, one of their older haunts, over in the main wing, and home again, or that was the direction they were going, in Justin’s intentions–himself and Grant, homeward bound for an entertainment vid they’d looked forward to, and with every intention of spending a quiet evening with absolutely nothing pressing to do.
But the door security at Wing One said, as they came through into the Wing: “Just a moment, ser. There’s a message for you.”
Message from whom was the instant question. Jordan or Yanni were the two fast guesses.
It turned out to be a note which the guard called up on his handheld with a few button‑pushes, and it started out, “Justin, don’t be mad.”
That was Ari. He didn’t even need to read the next line to be sure it was going to be something he wouldn’t like, a bad surprise about Jordan, or–
“Your stuff has all been moved. Most of it, anyway, and the rest will be by the time you get back. Don’t worry about a thing If you want anything else from the apartment that didn’t get transferred, you can get it–just ask security.
“Go down to the storm tunnels the usual way, go to your left, to where there used to be a dead end, in C corridor. There’s a big door there today. To get to the new wing, just use your regular keycard and walk through the doors. Security on the other side will let you in, give you your new keycards, and tell you where to go. I really hope you like it. Love, Ari.”
Love? Love?was it?
And moved?
“Thank you.” he said to the guard.
“You’re welcome, ser.”
They walked on. He reached the point of decision, at the corner by the lift, and said, “I suppose there’s no real reason to go to our apartment, is there?”
“I suppose the vid will show up eventually,” Grant said. “It probably got switched over to the new system anyway.”
“We’d better try the route,” Justin said. “Find out what we’re into.”
They took the lift down to the tunnels. C corridor had always had a nook in it. They’d seen it on a fairly frequent basis since they’d come to Wing One. Two days ago he’d swear it had still had a nook in it.
Today it had a clean new doorway with a card slot and no labeling whatsoever except: ID AND KEYCARD REQUIRED.
He shoved his card in. The door opened. They went through. Another guard, in the glass‑enclosed foyer, sat at a desk. The guard said pleasantly, “Justin Warrick, Grant ALX. Your keys. Your apartment is upstairs on the third floor, number 2. Your office will be on the first floor, number 28. Take the lift.”
“My keycard,” he said, and the guard returned it.
“Use the new card in the lift, ser.”
“Right,” he said, and he and Grant went into the lift. Grant hit 3, and they rose fast.
“With authority,” Grant commented. And the door let them out into a corridor with gray carpet–gray carpet, with a ripple of blue threading down its length. Abstract pictures hung at intervals, each one a bright color that played off the last one.